Rachel (2 page)

H
ARRAN
, 1879 BC

The spindle moved in an almost sacred rhythm as Rachel’s hands kept time with the pace of her feet. The sun spilled down at a midmorning angle over her father’s small flock as she walked, whistling a tune the sheep would recognize, pausing every now and then to look behind her.

They came to a grassy knoll, and she settled on one of the low hills where her perch allowed a better view of the animals as they grazed not far below. She set the spindle and distaff aside and reached into her pouch for a hunk of bread and cheese that she had packed early that morning. How relieved she had been to escape the confines of the house where Leah’s look of censure and biting words had heated her blood.

“There is no need for kohl when you are only attending those few sheep. You waste it. Do you not care for the expense it costs our father?” Leah had stood in the door to Rachel’s bedchamber, hands folded, her expression carrying that smug, older-sister look Rachel had grown to despise. If Leah cared more for her appearance and used a bit of kohl herself, she might have found a husband by now. But Rachel bit back the unkind words.

“I don’t waste it. A small amount in the right places protects
my eyes from the harsh sun.” She glanced from the bronze mirror to Leah’s scowling face. “And Father has gold enough to afford this small luxury.” That this particular kohl had been bought from merchants of Punt and cost her father more than he would normally consider for such a frivolous purchase did not trouble her. Leah worried too much.

Rachel gathered up her leather pouch and fastened it to her belt, then strode toward the door where Leah stood. “It would not hurt you to use some cosmetics now and then, you know.” At the narrowing of her sister’s pale eyes, she amended, “Most of our friends do so.”

The comment had done little to ease the tension. Leah was usually the quiet sort but, where Rachel was concerned, seemed too quick at times to voice her motherly opinion. That there were ten years between them might have accounted for her to become Rachel’s self-appointed adviser, but Rachel was weary of being told what to do.

She nibbled the cheese, her keen senses long attuned to the deviously quiet hills. She paused, listening. A moment later a small flock of birds took flight as one of the lambs drew too near. She leaned back against the trunk of a tamarisk tree.

If only Leah would marry and move away. Life would have been far easier for Rachel if she’d been her father’s only daughter. With her father’s two wives, not to mention a household of female servants, there were women enough to do the household chores and see that the men were well fed. The tension came in Leah’s presence. Would they get along better if they’d had the same mother?

She finished the cheese and water from the goatskin at her side, then took up the spindle again. There had to be a way to soften the strife with her half sister. And hadn’t she tried to be kind, to take care not to flaunt her beauty in Leah’s presence?

Leah seemed to have no trouble criticizing her in every other way, from Rachel’s culinary skills to her work with the loom.
Only Leah knew how to make such fine garments from their father’s wool. Only Leah could bake sweet treats that were crisp, tasty,
and
light as fine flour.

The thought stung. She was not some shallow-minded child. She was a woman as any other and had learned to cook and weave as well as the next woman. But Rachel far preferred to spin and shepherd the flock than be cooped up in the house with Leah and her mother, Farah. Farah, the first wife. Leah, the first daughter. While Rachel was the last born, and a girl at that, to a lesser wife. If not for her beauty, she would be counted as worth very little in her father’s eyes.

She blinked, tasting the salt of bitterness in an unexpected tear that slipped down her cheek. She brushed it away and lifted her chin. She would not weep over Leah or her father’s expectations or the tension of Laban’s house.

But as the sun drew its pathway to the west and the time came to take the sheep to the well for watering, Rachel could not help the earnest longing that filled her. To marry. To leave her father’s house and start anew. Away from the bitterness and strife of her father’s two wives. Away from her half brothers and the image they had of her as spoiled baby sister.

To be rid of Leah and her sharp tongue.

Leah sat at the loom, threaded a rich poppy-dyed woolen weft strand through the warp, and drew it through with practiced ease. Her father’s second wife, Suri, Rachel’s mother, sat at another loom in the opposite corner of the weaving room, her nimble fingers moving as swiftly as Leah’s. A subtle tension filled the air between them, as it always did when Suri chose to weave at the same hour as Leah. Competition to create the better garment was passed off as friendly, but in her heart, Leah knew the rivalry was more out of envy than camaraderie.

She released a long-suffering sigh, her thoughts still mulling
over her conversation with Rachel that morning. The girl was incorrigible! Always flaunting those dark eyes at every male who passed, even using her haughty charm on Leah’s older brothers. That the family coddled her was undeniable. Was it any wonder that Leah felt compelled to help the girl use some common sense and not waste the family’s resources on frivolities?

Rachel heard none of it, of course.
“It would not
hurt you to use some cosmetics now and then, you
know.”
As if kohl could change the color of Leah’s pale eyes . . . or give her the confidence she lacked.

She surveyed the row, irritated with herself. How had she missed that strand? A soft curse escaped as she undid the weaving and went back to fix the missed spot. She must stop trying to help Rachel. The girl cared not one whit what Leah thought and rarely listened to her elders. Leah winced at the thought. She was ten years Rachel’s senior and still she waited for a man to take her from this place. Had her father made inquiries with the newcomers to Harran? Surely even a passing merchant or a distant cousin from Ur could be sought.

But Laban seemed more interested in the fine cloth she produced and the sweet breads she baked him than in finding a man to cover her, to give her his name. Was she never to wed then? She would die a worthless one!

“You’re a quiet one today.” Suri’s voice grated Leah’s already heightened senses like coarse sand on skin. “Having trouble with the loom?” Suri’s voice held a hint of kindness, but Leah was in no mood to share her thoughts, especially with her rival’s mother.

“I’m fine,” she said, resisting the urge to dampen Suri’s cheerful spirit. Despite her own mother’s feelings toward Rachel’s mother, Leah could not bring herself to ruin the atmosphere of the day.

Suri nodded, resuming her work. “Some women at the well told of a caravan come up from Babylon to Harran. Brought
some settlers with them.” Suri tied off the end of a thread and drew another color from a basket at her side. “Perhaps your father will make use of the knowledge.” She glanced at Leah, her look telling.

“Why should a group of settlers concern my father?” Though she couldn’t deny the little kick such news brought to her heart. Might a suitable husband be found among them? “Have you told him? My father, I mean?” Her voice sounded anxious and much too curious. She busied herself with the threads, finishing the red and extracting one of bright gold.

“He had already heard. He met some of the men at the city gate as they entered.” She paused, her look pitying. “There were several younger men among them.”

Leah bit her lip, not wanting to be baited into asking what she longed to ask. She hated being the last to hear the latest gossip, but it was a price she paid for avoiding treks to the well. Even her visits to town were few.

“Unmarried men?” she asked at last, hope making her tongue loose.

Suri’s smile held a hint of triumph, but then she quickly grew thoughtful. She gave a brief nod. “Some of the younger ones were unwed, boys about Rachel’s age.”

Too young for her. She choked on a bitter sigh.

“But some of the others might be willing to take a second wife.” Her hands paused in the work of weaving as she faced Leah. “I know your mother resents me, Leah. But it is not the worst thing that could happen to wed a man who already has one wife. At least it would give you the chance to bear children. To wed is a good thing.” She offered Leah a smile that held too much sympathy. And yet Suri herself had wed her father, a man who had already had a wife and had laid to rest a concubine.

Still, Leah was the oldest. She deserved the status of first wife, and she wanted to marry a man who would love her. Only her.

“Perhaps one of the younger ones would suffice.” Leah
shrugged as though the subject was of no concern to her, though she knew Suri would not be fooled.

“Perhaps,” Suri said, though she did not look convinced. “I thought the same for Rachel. I will speak to your father.”

“No need to speak on my account.” She looked away and concentrated on her work. “I can speak with him myself.” And if he didn’t listen to her, she would send her mother. Never mind that Suri had her father’s ear. Her mother had been fairly cast aside since the woman had come into their home, if her mother was to be believed.

But as the afternoon shadows lengthened, Suri’s words flitted through Leah’s thoughts, her offer more troubling than Leah would allow. The God of Shem, whom her father fancied he worshiped along with his other household gods, was said to have created men and women to marry, one man to one woman. Male and female. To leave father and mother and be joined to a wife, a husband. The number of her father’s wives surely did not meet with God’s approval.

She wanted better when the time came.

If only it had already come.

2

Jacob stopped at a well on the outskirts of Luz to draw water for himself and the beast at his side. If there had been time, if he had not been forced to flee like a thief from the hand of justice, his father might have sent him off with camels and jewels and gold enough to purchase the bride he was sent to seek. But the truth of his fugitive situation weighed him down with every hurried step away from Beersheba and his father’s camp, away from the safety and security of all he had known.

The sun’s bright rays that had borne down on him as he trudged over hot sands had lost their potency as the round orb dipped beneath the earth’s surface. He was tired. Weary beyond a normal day’s work. He had spent days away with the sheep, but always with the knowledge that he could return to warmth and familiarity and a hot meal. Now his senses were attuned to the wild, every nerve ending heightened, and he could not stop the continued glances over his shoulder. Surely Esau would not follow.

But the fear and the doubt lingered.

If only he had found another way to secure the blessing. A way that did not involve cheating Esau and deceiving his father. If God had truly promised his mother that the covenant blessings would be his, then why was the ruse necessary?

He tied the donkey’s reins to a nearby tree branch, then moved the stone that covered the well and lowered his weighted goatskin to the depths until he felt the rope grow heavy beneath his grip. He pulled the full skin to the surface, then filled the trough. The work was slow going without a larger jar to do the filling, and by the time he had looked around for a stone smooth enough to use as a pillow, built a small fire, and rested on the nearby grasses, he had to force himself to eat some of the dates still left in his sack. He was nearly faint with hunger yet had no appetite. He felt old and worried with sorrow.